Jose Antonio Jimenez v. State of Florida & SC18-1321 Jose Antonio Jimenez v. State of Florida

265 So. 3d 462
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedOctober 4, 2018
DocketSC18-1247; SC18-1321
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 265 So. 3d 462 (Jose Antonio Jimenez v. State of Florida & SC18-1321 Jose Antonio Jimenez v. State of Florida) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jose Antonio Jimenez v. State of Florida & SC18-1321 Jose Antonio Jimenez v. State of Florida, 265 So. 3d 462 (Fla. 2018).

Opinions

PER CURIAM.

Jose Antonio Jimenez, a prisoner under sentence of death and an active death warrant, has filed two appeals in this Court since Governor Scott signed his death warrant on July 18, 2018. Collectively, Jimenez appeals the postconviction court's orders summarily denying his fifth and sixth successive motions for postconviction relief filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851, the postconviction court's order denying his motion to amend his sixth successive postconviction motion, and the postconviction court's order denying his motion to correct illegal sentence filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a). We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons below, we affirm the denials of all four motions and lift the stay of execution entered on August 10, 2018.

BACKGROUND

On October 2, 1992, Jimenez beat and stabbed to death 63-year-old Phyllis Minas in her home in Dade County, Florida. Jimenez v. State , 703 So.2d 437, 438 (Fla. 1997), cert. denied , 523 U.S. 1123, 118 S.Ct. 1806, 140 L.Ed.2d 945 (1998). Jimenez's jury found him guilty of burglary with an assault and battery in an occupied dwelling and first-degree murder, and he was subsequently sentenced to death for the murder consistent with his penalty phase jury's unanimous recommendation. Id. We previously described the facts of the incident as follows:

During the attack [Minas's] neighbors heard her cry, "Oh God! Oh my God!" and tried to enter her apartment through the unlocked front door. Jimenez slammed the door shut, locked the locks on the door, and fled the apartment by exiting onto the bedroom balcony, crossing over to a neighbor's balcony and then dropping to the ground. Rescue workers arrived several minutes after Jimenez inflicted the wounds, and Minas was still alive. After changing his clothes and cleaning himself up, Jimenez spoke to neighbors in the hallway and asked one of them if he could use her telephone to call a cab.
Jimenez's fingerprint matched the one lifted from the interior surface of the front door to Minas's apartment, and the police arrested him three days later at his parents' home in Miami Beach.

Id. We upheld Jimenez's convictions and sentence of death on direct appeal, and they became final in 1998 when the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. Id. at 442 ; Jimenez v. Florida , 523 U.S. 1123, 118 S.Ct. 1806, 140 L.Ed.2d 945 (1998).

Since then, Jimenez has engaged in extensive litigation in both state and federal court, none of which has resulted in relief from his convictions or sentence of death. As relevant to the claims raised in these proceedings, in 2001, we upheld the denial of Jimenez's initial postconviction motion.

*470Jimenez v. State , 810 So.2d 511, 513 (Fla. 2001). Thereafter, we affirmed the denial of Jimenez's first successive postconviction motion, which Jimenez filed in April 2005. Jimenez v. State , 997 So.2d 1056 (Fla. 2008). Additionally, Jimenez sought relief in federal court pursuant to a petition for writ of habeas corpus, the district court denied relief, and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied Jimenez's request for a certificate of appealability. Jimenez v. Fla. Dep't of Corr. , 481 F.3d 1337, 1340-41 (11th Cir.), cert. denied , 552 U.S. 1029, 128 S.Ct. 628, 169 L.Ed.2d 405 (2007).

Governor Scott signed Jimenez's death warrant on July 18, 2018.1 Thereafter, Jimenez filed several requests for public records to numerous agencies, including a request for additional public records pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.852(h)(3) to the City of North Miami Police Department (NMPD), which was the agency that investigated the victim's murder and, three days later, arrested Jimenez. Collateral counsel had not "previously requested public records" from NMPD (or any other agency), which is a prerequisite for a request for additional records pursuant to rule 3.852(h)(3). See Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.852(h)(3) ; see also Hannon v. State , 228 So.3d 505, 511 (Fla.), cert. denied , --- U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 441, 199 L.Ed.2d 326 (2017). NMPD had, however, more than 18 years before Jimenez's post-warrant records request, submitted records to the repository pursuant to the provisions of rule 3.852(h) that apply to cases like Jimenez's, in which the mandate affirming the conviction and sentence of death was issued prior to rule 3.852's effective date of October 1, 1998. See Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.852(h)(1). Although NMPD objected to and the postconviction court ultimately denied Jimenez's public records request to NMPD, NMPD sent its entire, unredacted file to the repository as a courtesy before the postconviction court entered its denial order so that there could be a comparison between it and NMPD's prior submission.

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Bluebook (online)
265 So. 3d 462, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jose-antonio-jimenez-v-state-of-florida-sc18-1321-jose-antonio-jimenez-fla-2018.